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Araminta Spook: Skeleton Island
Araminta Spook: Skeleton Island
Araminta Spook: Skeleton Island
Ebook126 pages1 hour

Araminta Spook: Skeleton Island

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

When Araminta and her best friend Wanda go on a school trip to Skeleton Island, they don't expect to get stranded there overnight. And they certainly don't expect the island to be haunted by ghostly skeletons of pirates! It certainly makes for a spooky sleepover. Luckily these ghoulish pirates just want someone to help them find their lost treasure, then they'll happily set sail on their ghost ship once more.

But someone else wants the treasure for themselves – can Araminta find what is lurking in the depths before it's too late?
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 18, 2015
ISBN9781408862339
Araminta Spook: Skeleton Island
Author

Angie Sage

ANGIE SAGE was born in London and grew up in the Thames Valley, London, and Kent. She loves the sea, spooky old houses, and time traveling (the easy way, by reading history books). Angie has created many books for children, including the New York Times bestselling series Septimus Heap and Araminta Spookie. She lives in England. Visit her online at www.angiesage.com and on Twitter @AngieSageAuthor.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Skeleton Island: An Araminta Spookie Adventure by Angie Sage is a children's chapter book. It is the seventh in the series and after finishing it, I will definitely be recommending this series for the library.

    Araminta Spookie and her best friend Wanda are attending boarding school, Gargoyle Hall. They are still having problems with two other girls, Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora, but nothing they can't handle. When Miss Gargoyle announces that they are going on a fieldtrip to Skeleton Island Araminta is excited. She has been there before with Uncle Drac and she even has a baby bat in a bat box as her pet. Wanda is excited because she loves pirates and Araminta has shared the pirate story about the sunken ship the "Cutlass Kate", Captain Peg Leg and the pirate crew that sank off the island. Of course when they get to the island they end up paired with Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora. Araminta decides to scare them by taking them to the bat cave and disrupting the bats, but unfortunately, her plan backfires. When Araminta and Wanda find themselves marooned on the island as the Fat Seagull, the ferry, chugged back to school without them, the adventures begin. Meeting ghosts, skeletons, finding treasure and being taken captive all keep you wondering what is going to happen next.

    This is a great story for reluctant readers as well as avid readers. It is a good chapter book for youngsters looking to move out of picture books. Araminta is a strong willed, and slightly odd, young lady with lots of stories and experiences to share. We learn more about Wanda in this story. She seems to be quiet and mild mannered, but get her upset or scared and she will stand up for herself and her friends. She can be a little whiny though, but then again, when you are in danger or bat guano, you might be whiny too. This book is illustrated by John Kelly with black and white artwork that adds to the story just enough to keep you entertained. The story has enough adventure to entertain reluctant readers that need high action books to hold their interest and for those that love a touch of the spooky or supernatural.

    I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Book preview

Araminta Spook - Angie Sage

My friend, Wanda Wizzard, and I live in Gargoyle Hall, which is a boarding school for ghouls. Oops, I mean girls. We used to live in Spook House with a whole load of ghosts—and also my aunt Tabby and uncle Drac, and Wanda’s parents, Barry and Brenda Wizzard. Now we spend the week at school and go home to Spook House at weekends because Brenda misses Wanda. No one has said anything about missing me, but I think my uncle Drac secretly does, even though he would not dare tell Aunt Tabby that.

The only thing I miss about Spook House is our ghosts. We have three really good ones: Sir Horace, who is a knight in rusty armour—definitely not in shining armour like they are in all the stories. There is Sir Horace’s page, Edmund, who, even though he moans a lot, is quite brave. And there is Sir Horace’s ghost-wolfhound, Fang, who is a big, messy dog and does not realise he is a ghost at all. Fang is fun.

Gargoyle Hall School is fun too, but it doesn’t have any ghosts. It had a horrible monster when we first came but that wasn’t a real monster, it was two nasty girls in a monster suit, and they have gone now. I prefer ghosts to monsters; they are so much more interesting and I have often thought it would be really good if we could have a school ghost. When I mentioned that to Miss Gargoyle, who is the headmistress, she just laughed.

Even Wanda did not seem very keen. We have lots of ghosts at home, Araminta, she said. What I would really like at school is a pirate.

I sighed. Wanda has got a craze for pirates and it is all my fault. I have an old pirate map of Skeleton Island, which has a big cross on it showing where their treasure is buried. Uncle Drac gave me the map when I first went to Skeleton Island with him. I had wanted to look for the treasure, but Uncle Drac said that bats were much more interesting. So, even though there was buried pirate treasure and an old shipwreck you could see at low tide, we went to visit a boring cave of bats. The best bit was on the way home when Uncle Drac told me lots of pirate stories.

But last week, when we first heard we were going to Skeleton Island on a school trip, I made the big mistake of showing Wanda my pirate treasure map and telling her one of Uncle Drac’s stories—and now she is pirate mad.

The morning of our trip to Skeleton Island, when we were in the school dining room and I was having my favourite breakfast—wobbly porridge and syrup—Wanda said, Isn’t it brilliant, Araminta?

Wherris? I mumbled and spat some porridge out by mistake.

Manners, Araminta, Bossy Bella called out. Bossy Bella is one of the big girls who sits at the end of the table and makes sure we behave. She was going to come on the trip too, to help out. Do not talk with your mouth full, she said. It is rude and no one will understand what you say.

That was not true. Wanda always understands what I say when I talk with my mouth full. And she obviously had, because she carried on with what she was saying: It’s brilliant that we’re going to Skeleton Island today.

I swallowed my porridge and said, Yes, it is. Totally brilliant.

Wouldn’t it be great to see some real pirates? I’d love to meet one, Wanda said. Pirates are much more fun than ghosts.

Wanda, I replied very patiently, real pirates are not fun at all. Uncle Drac told me some horrible stories about pirates.

But pirates are so exciting! said Wanda in an excited, squeaky voice.

"No they are not, they are boring, I told her. All pirates do is go around pushing people off planks and saying ‘Arrgh!’ in a silly voice. You cannot have an interesting conversation with someone when all they say is, ‘Arrgh.’"

Wanda made some syrup circles on her wobbly porridge and said, But, Araminta, pirates always have a parrot and that is who you talk to.

Huh, I said and flicked some syrup over Nosy Nora, who was busy listening in. Who wants to talk about birdseed all day?

Wanda raised her eyes up like she was looking for a piece of porridge stuck to her fringe. And then Creepy Cora, who is thin and spiky and is Nosy Nora’s best friend, said, I like talking to parrots.

I was not surprised. Creepy Cora looks a bit like a parrot herself.

Wanda gobbled up the rest of her wobbly porridge very fast and then she said, Skeleton Island will be so exciting. I can’t wait! and she jumped up from the table.

Sit down, please, Wanda, Bossy Bella said. It is good manners to wait until everyone else at the table has finished.

So Wanda sat down. But, Araminta, she said, "suppose we found a pirate ghost. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?"

Wanda was right. I would definitely like that.

It was fun getting to Skeleton Island, but it took ages. The bus taking us to the ferry boat was late. Nosy Nora was sick on the bus and it had to stop. Twice. Then the bus went into the car park the wrong way and some spikes jumped up and poked holes in its tyres so it couldn’t move, so we all had to stay in the bus until it was safe to get out. Miss Gargoyle went and got us some chocolate while we waited and Nora was sick again.

When we were at last allowed off the bus and we all had to put on our bright yellow Gargoyle Hall jackets, so that we didn’t get lost. Wanda said we looked like a lot of yellow plastic ducks. We picked up our rucksacks and I checked inside mine carefully to see that the bat box was safe. Inside was Baby Bat, who I was taking on her very first trip across the sea. Uncle Drac gave me Baby Bat for my birthday and there was no way I was going to leave her behind.

The ferry boat, which was red and called the Fat Seagull, was waiting for us down on the dock. It was quite misty and the sea was calm, but Nosy Nora was sick again, and she was allowed to lie down in a little cabin downstairs. Wanda and I were fine, but we got so cold that we decided to put on the silly hats that Uncle Drac had knitted for us. Uncle Drac likes knitting. My hat was a blue octopus and you could tie its tentacles under your chin to stop it blowing off in the wind, which I did. Wanda’s was a seagull. I had to tie its long yellow legs under her chin to stop her teeth chattering, which is a very annoying noise.

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